Interview With The Writer — David Perlmutter
The Humble Man
Hi David I must say that you are a man that caught my eye when I joined Medium; I felt that you were very supportive towards my writing, and I want to start by saying thank you.
First of all, you are more than welcome. I have followed your articles with interest and intrigue, and seeing New Writers Welcome and What Is Love To You? grow in size and scope within Medium has given me hope for what I might achieve here with my animation themed publication, Focus!
Many people know you for reading their articles and highlighting their work; are you conscious of that “tag”?
A bit more than I used to be. Mainly because people have written articles about me due to that, and I think they probably have made more money off of those than I have with my own work so far on the platform. I didn’t want to become known for that- it just happened that some people took offense to what they saw as me putting too much “ink” on their pieces, and others defending my “right” to be able to do that.
It’s not what I want or wanted to be known for, though. I had hoped that my fiction and my non-fiction articles on popular culture would get me an audience here. And now it seems to be happening.
Editor Andrey Pilipets said he has the impression of you as a patient and thick-skinned person. Is that how you see yourself?
Patient, yes. Thick-skinned, no. I’m not terribly good under pressure…
You do not have an “About” tab on your profile page, so you appear a bit of a mystery. Is this a part of your character?
If you mean the new About Me thing, I haven’t had time to fill that in, but I hope to in the coming days. Whereas I did write an article for the About Me publication a few months ago, and it’s still the most popular thing of what I have written here. I’m not purposely trying to be mysterious.
I just haven’t had time lately to write articles about myself, although I find that a bit of challenge because I haven’t had the kind of life that some of the writers here have had in terms of physical, emotional and mental issues that they can draw on for material, and it’s hard finding a way for me to do that in terms of an article.
I recently read that you are a Vocal & Fiction Awards Finalist; many congratulations, what is your secrete to writing your articles?
Thank you, about the Vocal thing. I did make the semi-finals but not the final cut for the book project that it led to.
Before I came to Medium, I had been writing or trying to write short stories for anthologies and magazines, and non-fiction articles for scholarly publications, and what I published here are those items. I came to Medium because there was less of a risk of being turned down or denied publication elsewhere. And that was what I wanted: get the stuff out there and see if the audience was there for it. It seems now that it is there.
If there is any “secret” that I have, it was concentrating on the things I knew something about or aspired to be involved with and go from there. That’s probably the closest thing I can offer right now in terms of “advice”.
You choose to highlight articles more than you comment, is this for speed, are you shy, or is there another reason?
Speed has nothing to do with it, nor reticence to comment. I highlight because I agree with what the author has said, and/or they have used a particularly interesting turn of phrase that I admire. Some authors do this fairly often in their work, and this is my way of showing I appreciate them. And isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing as readers at Medium, anyway?
Marilyn Glover said to me that she enjoyed the feedback you gave her on some musical lyrics, saying, “David is very smart” do you enjoy music?
Very much so. Music is a constant companion in my life. I tend to play my CDs often during the day.
You seem to be the most voracious reader on Medium. What do you enjoy most from the content you read here?
I look for people who can write convincingly and convey feelings and dialogue well, whether they write humor, fiction or even very aggressive diatribes. And I also enjoy learning about new people and places.
The advantage of Medium is that you can connect with writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and learn something about them you didn’t before. That’s particularly true for me with regards to the authors I follow from Britain, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Editor Sally Prag said she would also love to know what you get most out of being on the platform. Is it the connections? Ideas and inspiration?
Connecting with other people is the most important part. Knowing that I’m not the only person dealing with stress, or mental illness, or finding ideas to write about, or contemporary political issues, is very comforting.
You have several self-published books; where can our readers find your books to buy?
My Amazon Author page is probably the best place to start:
You like superheroes; that is something we have in common; if you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?
Intelligence is the most underrated superpower, so having super-intelligence would be useful. I made it a point to have my superheroes all have that regardless of the different physical forms they take.
You have a big following on Medium, which now stands at just under 10,000, you obviously connect with people on a personal level, and they love you; do you realise how popular you are? Or is this something that you don’t even think about?
I don’t really give it a lot of thought. The follower count, as I have been informed by other writers, doesn’t mean a whole lot, and it’s more important for writers to know who the people who are consistently following your work are on the platform, and write with them in mind. So that’s the approach I take.
David, you have Asperger’s Syndrome, which you have in common with my son. Do you think this helps with your creative thinking?
It helps a great deal, more than you think. People with Asperger’s have the great strength of being able to at least attempt to make plans for how they deal with life in general, and planning pieces of fiction and essays naturally falls into that category.
We want to prepare for any sort of eventuality, but we also don’t want to give anyone anything that’s half-assed, so we try to find some way of presenting it that is decent by our standards. And that requires preparation within an inch of life sometimes.
I recently watched “Death Note” with my son and see that you are also into Animation; although my knowledge is limited, I would like to know if you have a favourite Animation.
It would be a long list putting down all the animated films and television shows that have inspired me. But, as alluded to earlier, the superhero ones are particularly interesting.
Possibly because the Manichean polarization of good vs. evil prevents a lot of ambiguity from bleeding into the scenarios. And people with Asperger’s have a great deal of issues processing moral and structural ambiguity. That’s probably why I don’t watch too many films and TV shows where that atmosphere is prevalent.
David, I would like to thank you so much for taking part in this interview, we all love your work and hope you can continue to guide us through your highlights, feedback and the support you give.
Thank you for all the compliments about me and my work, and I hope to talk to you all again soon.
David Perlmutter
Where to find David online:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidperlmutter.22
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidPerlmutt10
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-perlmutter-ab54051b0/
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/davidkperlmutter
Curious Fictions: https://curiousfictions.com/authors/454-david-perlmutter
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/davidperlmutter?fan_landing=true
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/T6T31N0VU
Substack: https://davidperlmutter.substack.com/
You can find my stories and essays on Medium here: https://dkperlmutter.medium.com/
